


All New Star Charts

by Kalloway



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 10:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12252417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalloway/pseuds/Kalloway
Summary: Shiro, Keith, and the stars above them.





	All New Star Charts

"Keith!" Shiro called. He waved his arms, but it was a useless gesture. Keith-- that was the guy's name, right? --was looking at the sky. "Keith!"

Finally, Keith looked over at him, blinking a couple of times and then wincing and reaching back to rub his neck. 

"Keith, right?"

"Yeah, um... it's still okay to just call you Shiro?" Keith questioned. They'd met a couple of days ago, but Shiro had met about a hundred cadets a couple of days ago and he'd forgotten far more names than he'd remembered. But Keith had asked him some good questions, and he just... stuck. 

"Yes," Shiro insisted. 

"What's up?" Keith asked, before looking upward. "Aside from the sky... and constellations I absolutely cannot find."

Shiro chuckled and gestured off in the direction Keith was wandering. "Well, that way is a drop-off you won't see until you've already dropped off. It won't kill you, but you'll be scraped up, miserable, and the guy who fell off the little silly cliff while staring at the stars."

Finally, Keith smiled. The dim light of his tablet - star chart displayed prominently - was enough for Shiro to see that. "Um... thank you." 

"That's why I'm out here," Shiro admitted. He'd been asked to help keep the cadets from wandering anywhere they shouldn't and he remembered the drop-off quite clearly. And he had a few free days, and nights, before heading back into space, so... There he was. 

"Well, you haven't seen Cassiopeia floating around anywhere, have you?" There was a hint of frustration in Keith's voice and Shiro had to look upwards quickly and make sure it hadn't suddenly moved to keep from laughing. 

"Right where it always is," Shiro replied. "C'mere."

Keith hesitated for a second before stepping over to let Shiro reposition him and then they both looked upwards. 

Shiro pointed as best he could at the familiar W-shaped group of stars. "Right there. Looks kind of like a W drawn by a pre-schooler."

There was silence for a moment, followed by a soft "Oh--!"

Keith was nearly leaning back on him, still looking up, and Shiro did chuckle this time. 

"How come I couldn't find it? How come you found it so easily?"

"Practice," Shiro said. "What do you need to find next?"

"Orion. I think I might've found it," Keith replied. "Maybe, but you can let me know?"

"As long as you don't mind me watching for any of your classmates wandering off this way," Shiro reminded him. He could see a bit of himself in Keith. Though he'd had a better idea of where a few constellations were to start with. At least the basics. 

"Oh... oh yeah..." Keith scooted a few steps away, and after a quick downward glance, looked up again. 

"Unfortunately, there's plenty of drop-off for everyone."

"Do the stars even look the same from the moon?" Keith asked. "Doesn't everything start to look different when you leave the ground?"

"After the first few light-years, yeah," Shiro replied. "But you won't really notice any changes from the moon, sorry."

"Oh..." 

"I asked the same thing, though I did it during the lecture," Shiro admitted. "I didn't actually mind wandering around in the dark trying to make the stars look like things..."

"Til you fell off the drop-off?"

Well, at least Keith caught on quickly. 

"Yeah. Now where's Orion?"

"That way," Keith declared, pointing. "And I think I'm getting the hang of this. I should have learned some of these before..."

"You might have, but you forgot, or you learned them a little different. Different cultures have different constellations, after all, and different stories. But we use the IAU's set so that's what you have to learn," Shiro replied. 

Keith, still looking up, took a few steps back and bumped into Shiro, who put his hands on Keith's shoulders to steady him. 

"Sorry..."

"Don't be. What's next?"

For another hour, they found constellations and Shiro answered Keith's questions, until Keith's tablet lit up that it was time to turn in for the night. But the assignment wasn't due yet and the stars weren't going anywhere. 

Shiro had no plans other than guarding his spot the next evening. And of course, Keith found him right away.

~*~

For the next couple of years, Shiro received regular messages from Keith: Star charts for that particular night. New - or old, old - constellations drawn over top the current ones. Stories, though never about himself. Confirmation that the drop-off did exist and it did lead to a lot of scrapes and misery. 

Shiro responded whenever he could, with lunar landscapes and new models of spacecraft, mythology and lore, and whatever his next plans were. 

His chances to visit were few and far between, and while Shiro had things he wanted to say, the time never seemed to be right. Not even when they sat out in the desert beside each other, pointing at stars and talking. 

Eventually the time would be right. Maybe after Kerberos. Maybe...

~*~

"Can't sleep?" 

Shiro glanced back at Keith, who had just let himself onto the Castle-ship's dark, quiet bridge. 

"Someone has to make sure nobody falls down into the... tiny seams between floor plates," Shiro replied. He was glad to see Keith, even if he had hoped that everyone else was managing to get some rest. 

"I already know you can't help me make a star chart with any of these constellations..." 

Keith walked over to him and, after a moment, circled around and let himself lean. 

"Keith..."

"Look, that one is Iverson on a unicycle," Keith said quickly, pointing. "And that's a jackalope!"

Shiro blinked. And laughed. It felt good. He wrapped an arm around Keith - his own arm, not the... prosthetic that he was still doing his best not to think about - and pointed at another cluster. "Coran's mustache?"

"It is! I mean... I wonder if it really is named that." Keith was a quiet a long moment, then sighed. "I didn't think we'd ever get to do this again. And I never got to tell you..."

"The same thing I was going to tell you?" Shiro asked. He didn't let Keith go entirely, but did let him twist around until he could wrap his own arms around Shiro and hang on for a long, quiet moment with his head on Shiro's shoulder.

"I figured we'd have time once I graduated and maybe we could... get stationed together, I don't know, but you were gone and..."

"Now none of that matters," Shiro interrupted. "None of it. We've got something else we need to do."

"Oh..."

Shiro could feel Keith deflating against him. He'd said that impressively wrong, hadn't he?

"And we have whatever this is going to be?" he added. He could motivate a team, but this...

"Yeah," Keith said quickly. "I thought..."

Before he could make the situation any muddier, Shiro did the only thing that made any sense to do: he kissed Keith. And after a terrifying second, Keith kissed him back. 

Well, they'd finally managed that, at least. 

Though it did completely and utterly end their stargazing for the night. Other things were far more interesting and important.


End file.
